Having had the opportunity (courtesy of HBO) to see the first four episodes of this coming season (premiering April 1st in the US and Latin America, April 2nd in the UK and—I believe—a deal of Eastern Europe), Linda and I share some very general thoughts on what to expect from those episodes, and what the dangers might be for the rest of the season. All in all, the first four episodes play pretty well, but for our part the first two episodes start on the back foot somewhat—they’re not as strong as we might have liked, and we try and give some sense of why.

As always, we’re die-hard fans of the novels and everything, inevitably, is touched by that perspective… but sometimes, reasonable and even necessary decisions for the sake of adaptation don’t necessarily lead to the very best storytelling. It’s a difficult beast, adapting a mammoth series such as A Song of Ice and Fire, and it can’t fire on all cylinder all the time. But most of the time? It gets there, for the most part, and there are some sections of the story which should please even the most hardcore purists. Other areas… perhaps not so much, especially as sometimes the changes seem gratuitous, change for the sake of change.